Motorola has unveiled its newest smartphone, the Droid Razr, calling it the “world’s thinnest 4G smartphone.”
The phone is 7.1mm thin, features an 8 MP rear camera, and has a 1.2 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM. It has a 4.3-inch super AMOLED advanced QHD display and is powered by Android Gingerbread.
“Droid Razr by Motorola combines style, performance and the power of Verizon Wireless’s 4G LTE network into one innovative device,” said Marni Walden, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, in a statement. “These are two iconic brands that separately symbolize the best technology available today. The combination will provide an unsurpassed wireless experience for customers.”
The device will be available in early November for $299.99 with a new two-year Verizon contract.
Motorola revealed the new phone at a joint event with Verizon in New York City Tuesday afternoon. You can follow along with the rest of the event here.
The DROID continues its run on the rumor wagon, even as the release of its newest member, DROID 3, is round the bend. First on the cards is a bunch of leaked images of the DROID 3, which was fished out from Verizon’s site by the guys at Droid-Life.
You can see from the screenshots the front and back of the DROID 3 and if that’s not enough for you, a 360 view of the device can be found here.And that’s not all. Droid-Life has also nabbed a 70 page long user guide of the phone. You can download the manual here.
The lack of 4G LTE connectivity is a blow that, we guess, we can outlive. The presence of a physical keyboard on an Android device is what pleases us most.
Specifications wise, we expect to see a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor powered phone running the Android 2.3 beneath the “Motorola Application Platform”.
The D3 packs a 4-inch 540×960 qHD display, 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and 1080p video capture and a front camera for video chatting. The device doesn’t come with a preinstalled microSD card, but you can find preloaded apps like VZ Navigator, Blockbuster, and V CAST Music and Video.
On the whole, the package does seem to be a welcome upgrade from the DROID family. We have heard no statements regarding the price, but since the launch is impending, we expect to update you soon.
With release of the much lighter and better, camera-equipped iPad 2, the tablet market is left awestruck again. While the first generation iPad remains to be the highest selling tablet, the iPad 2 with great features at same old price stands to gain ground over its predecessor. Google’s steadily trying to make a difference with its Android OS, and other manufacturers are constantly employing the latest versions of the Android OS to play catch-up with the iPad – that now stands even more impressive as the iPad 2. Thus, to learn which tablet plays heavier in which segment and where it actually hurts the other, we’ve compiled a face-off - Apple iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. HP TouchPad vs. BlackBerry PlayBook for your notice, jump down for the best.
Verizon Wireless and Motorola on Wednesday introduced their latest Android-powered smartphone, the Droid X. The Motorola Droid X has a large 4.3-inch touch screen, an 8-megapixel camera and a 1-GHz TI processor.
"You have essentially a personal supercomputer," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said at the announcement.
The Droid X is clearly an important product for Verizon, Google, Motorola and Adobe, who all sent top executives to introduce the phone in simultaneous events in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. It's also Verizon's fourth offering in the Droid line, after the original Motorola Droid; and the Droid Eris and the Droid Incredible, both HTC phones.
Like the HTC EVO 4G for Sprint, the Droid X is a large slab (2.6 inches x 5.0 inches x 0.4 inches, weighing 5.47 oz) with a big, bright screen running the Google Android operating system. Unlike the EVO 4G, the Droid X runs Motorola's own skin over Android 2.1. This isn't the company's earlier MotoBlur software, but a new set of widgets for social networking, messaging and media that do things like integrate Twitter messages into your e-mail inbox.
The Droid X is Motorola's 11th Android-powered smartphone, Motorola chief executive Sanjay Jha said. It's also a great phone, he said. Motorola spent considerable time working on improving phone call quality on the Droid X, and gave the device multiple antennas and three microphones for improved noise cancellation. One microphone, which faces out, helps record great sound for videos taken with the HD 720p video camera mode.
The Droid X's 854-by-480 screen and HDMI video out "screams video," Stratton said, so the device will come with some cutting-edge video applications. The phone can rent and buy movies from Blockbuster that play at 800-by-480 resolution on the phone's screen. A newly-updated NFL app will stream live games to the phone, and V CAST Video will provide a range of other video clips.
Skype has also been integrated onto the Droid X, just like on many other Verizon smartphones.
Shantu Narayan, Adobe's chief executrive, participated in the launch even though the Droid X won't have Adobe Flash when the phone comes out on July 15th. Even though the phone has been designed to run Flash, and Flash content will be hardware-accelerated for better speed and lower power usage, the Droid X ships with Android 2.1. Flash requires version 2.2. Both the new Droid X and the older Motorola Droid will get a 2.2/Flash upgrade "later this summer," Stratton said.
The phone supports wireless hotspot mode, too. A $20/month fee gets you 2 Gbytes of wireless hotspot or tethered PC use, over and above the standard $30/month data charge which lets you use the Internet on the Droid X itself in an "unlimited" way, Stratton said.
The phone has a large, but removable 1570 mAh battery and can be upgraded to a 1930 mAh battery that is only one millimeter thicker, Jha said. Other specs include 8 GB of internal memory, a 16GB included MicroSD memory card, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support.
Although the Droid X is coming out just a day before Apple's official sale date for the new iPhone 4, the announcement was mostly free of digs at Apple. Schmidt got in one when he called the phone "not a toy, not just an app engine," but the assembled executives were much more focused on promoting the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Google said today in a press release that 160,000 Android phones are being sold per day, worldwide.
The Droid X will arrive at Verizon on July 15th and cost $299.99, minus a $100 mail-in rebate. Any Verizon customer with a plan that expires in 2010 will be eligible for the upgrade price, Stratton said. Accessories will include a car kit that automatically kicks the phone into "car mode," and an HDMI-compatible dock.
The Droid X is exclusive to Verizon Wireless, but a similar model may come out in the future on international carriers, Jha said.
385diggsdigg Not interested in waiting until the 23rd for Verizon's big announcement? Don't worry, we've got you covered right now! The Motorola Droid X has probably been one of the worst kept smartphone secrets in recent memory, but after spending two hours with the phone we sort of see why. In short, it's pretty awesome. Call it a superphone or a mega-smartphone, but the 4.3-inch handset is absolutely Verizon / Motorola's answer to the HTC EVO 4G, and makes the Droid Incredible look like a bench warmer. What do we mean? We'll let you see for yourself just after the break in a breakdown of exactly what this phone is all about -- and in a video or three of it in action. Oh, and on your way down, make sure to feast your eyes on the gallery, too.
Hardware: From afar, the Droid X looks like the EVO 4G, but up close the differences are obvious. Its slightly longer and wider, and it has four physical buttons along the bottom of the screen rather than touch-sensitive ones like those on the EVO. In hand, the phone feels really solid and we were surprised at how light it felt, though we could really do without the hump on the back. And yes, the large thing fits in a jean pocket, but not without slightly bulging.
Screen: Apparently the Droid X has a 4.3-inch, FWVGA 854 x 480-resolution screen, though we couldn't confirm that on the device itself. Regardless, it was super crisp and the capacitive screen was mighty responsive to taps and multitouch gestures. Our one concern is the mirrored trim around the screen -- it makes the whole face of the phone extra glossy.
Motorola Blur / Android: We confirmed that the Droid X was running Android 2.1 with some new sort of Motoblur (perhaps Ninjablur) skin. We didn't get to configure Blur with our social networks and contacts, but it didn't seem as "in your face" as the original. There's also a new navigation bar along the bottom that lets you easily jump to different Android panes. We can't really make a call on how we feel about this new Moto skin, but it does feel like a major improvement and it absolutely didn't slow down performance. We should also mention that preloaded on the phone was a Blockbuster application and a DLNA type app. Those two pieces combined with the fact that there will be a separate HDMI dock available has us thinking multimedia is the focus here.
Camera / Camcorder: The Droid X has a 8-megapixel camera, and records 720p video. But here's the thing about the camera: you have to tap to focus and it doesn't refocus until you actually snap the picture. In addition, the camera button on the phone was super stiff, so when we went to shoot a pic the entire thing shook and blurred the image. You can see what we are talking about in the gallery below. As for video recording, it was a bit laggy while we were shooting at 720p, but the video plays back smoothly, and in our opinion, crisper than the EVO 4G. Nevertheless, as you can see in the clip below, the white balance keeps on changing and the exposure fluctuates.
Keyboard: Just like with the CLIQ XT, Motorola preloads Swype. However, we also noticed a "multitouch keyboard" option. Oh yes, you heard us. When we held down two letters simultaneously it recognized both. We could really go on and on about how excited we are about this, but just check the video below of it in action.
Performance: Snappy! That's exactly what the Droid X is. The entire phone and transitions were super fast and responsive, keyboards popped up with virtually no lag and it tracks finger swiping more accurately than most Android phones we've seen -- it undoubtedly has its 1GHz ARMv7 processor (presumably an OMAP3630) to thank for that. If the specs on the model we saw are correct, the phone will come with 8GB of storage space. Obviously, we didn't have enough time to test battery life, but there was some sort of special battery management software on the phone.
Pretty promising, isn't it? We should know more when we get an announcement toward the end of the month, but in the mean time, we're really excited about what Moto's got going on here.
Updated: There have been conflicting reports on the Droid X's screen size. We're going with 4.3-inches for now.
Motorola announced its eighth Android-powered device today. Called the Motorola QUENCH, this new smartphone features a touch-screen design with navigational features such as pinch and zoom and a touch pad. The QUENCH also comes with Adobe Flash Lite and a 3.1-inch high-resolution display. In the U.S., the QUENCH will be known as the CLIQ XT. It will be available next month exclusively through T-Mobile.
Another key feature of the QUENCH is its MOTOBLUR technology. This Android-powered content delivery service can synchronize contacts, posts, messages, photos, and more from social networking sources such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, email accounts, and Last.FM and display them on the phone's home screen.
To help ensure the phone provides clear calls, the QUENCH offers dual microphones and noise cancellation technology. The phone also has a connected media player and a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and a LED flash. Other features include voice-activated search, 3G and Wi-Fi access, aGPS, and stereo Bluetooth.
Motorola Expands Android(TM) Portfolio: Introducing QUENCH(TM) with MOTOBLUR(TM), a New Touch-screen Smartphone
QUENCH with MOTOBLUR streams together messaging and contacts so you can tap into your social scene using a full virtual QWERTY and front navigation touch pad
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mobile World Congress -- Today Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) announced QUENCH with MOTOBLUR, Motorola's Android-powered content delivery service, which organizes messages and synchronizes contacts to keep conversations in constant motion. QUENCH's sleek touch-screen design, combined with great navigational features such as pinch and zoom and a touch pad, as well as the inclusion of Adobe Flash Lite, make browsing the web on its 3.1" high-resolution display a breeze. Motorola QUENCH™ will be available beginning in the first quarter of 2010. In the U.S., it will be called CLIQ XT™ and be available next month exclusively through T-Mobile USA. This is the eighth Android-powered device launched by Motorola around the globe.
"As we continue to expand Motorola's portfolio of Android-powered devices, we remain committed to delivering more of what people want from their handheld devices in easier ways," said Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices and Home business. "QUENCH with MOTOBLUR showcases Motorola's design heritage by offering a compelling differentiation from the traditional Android experience, giving people an easier way to have more messaging, more Web and more music."
MOTOBLUR is Motorola's Android-powered content delivery service created to make phones more personal and socially smart. It is the first solution to sync contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more — from sources such as Facebook®, MySpace, Twitter®, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail and Last.FM — and automatically deliver them to the home screen. Content is fed into easy-to-manage streams allowing you to spend less time managing your life and more time living it.
Messaging is made easier on QUENCH with the combination of MOTOBLUR features, a palm and pocket-friendly design and Swype, a new feature that makes responding to messages and entering text easier than ever. MOTOBLUR keeps happenings, messages, news feeds and more readily available for browsing and responding on the customizable home screen. Contact information, such as email addresses, profile pictures and phone numbers, is automatically synced whenever the details change online, so there's no need to manually update.
QUENCH delivers a complete Web experience on a full touch-screen device with pinch and zoom capabilities. Navigation is enhanced with a front-facing, centrally-located touch pad, so it's easier and more intuitive to flick through the Web. Adobe Flash Lite enables rich media content such as banners and videos to be displayed and fully enjoyed on the 3.1" high-resolution display.
The innovative new connected media player on QUENCH is not only connected to the Internet but your social networks as well. QUENCH connects you to your music with a new style of media player that lets you buy and instantly download music from an MP3 store while integrating third-party apps such as TuneWiki, SoundHound, GoTV, and YouTube™. The music search feature makes finding your songs easy while synchronized lyrics in any language you choose make learning songs easier than before. Share your favorite tracks, discover new ones, find lyrics, watch videos, and stream FM radio.
QUENCH enables clear calls using dual microphones and noise cancellation technology, while crystal clear pictures are enabled by a 5.0 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. Finding information online or within the device is made even easier with voice-activated search (English only). Simply say what you are looking for and QUENCH will find contacts, serve up Google™ Web search results based on location, or launch applications. Android Market™ provides fast access to more than 20,000 apps and widgets for limitless customizations and enhancements to QUENCH. Extras such as 3G and Wi-Fi® access, aGPS and stereo Bluetooth® make QUENCH a solid Android-powered device.
Finally, MOTOBLUR provides end-users with convenience and peace of mind, as lost devices can be located from a secure personal information portal and even remotely erased if necessary. Then, one user name and password brings back your contacts, messages and connectivity to your previously configured networks and email providers. Plus, with over-the-air updates, Motorola has the ability to improve current features and add new ones to QUENCH, ensuring the overall experience is continually enhanced.
Availability
QUENCH with MOTOBLUR will be available in multiple regions around the globe beginning in Q1 2010. In the U.S., the device will be called CLIQ XT with MOTOBLUR and will be available exclusively through T-Mobile USA beginning next month.
The last decade has been revolutionary for the mobile phone.
Not only has ownership rocketed, the cellular phone been transformed from a gadget for simply making and taking calls or texting into an astonishingly powerful hub for multimedia entertainment, internet surfing, social networking, GPS location-finding, camera snapping – plus lots more that there's an app for…
So what were the handsets that rocked us during the last decade and defined the noughties?
1. Nokia 7110 (1999/2000)
While we partied like it was 1999 and the clocks chimed in the Noughties, hip phone-slingers were slipping the spring-loaded slider and calling on the smartest handset in town – the WAP-packing Nokia 7110.
The first phone to deliver up the mobile internet, we surfed to see where to go next as the New Year kicked in…and waited….and waited…The internet in your pocket (well, sort of in a rubbishy, snail-slow way) had arrived.
2. Nokia 3310 (2000)
Many people's first mobile phone, like its 3210 predecessor the Nokia 3310 was one of the early mobile-boom smash hits.
Not only was it cheap and cheerful, it offered a smidgeon of style, with swappable customisable covers, an internal antenna, T9 predictive text messaging, downloadable ringtones and voice dialling. And there was Snake II, too. It was a doddle to operate, helping to cement loyalty to Nokia in many a phone buyer.
3. Vertu (from 2002)
The mobile phone as money-no-object noughties boom-time status symbol. Ultra-premium brand Vertu was established by Nokia to offer opulent crafted handsets in luxury materials to those with huge quantities of cash to splash.
No 'free with contract' deals with Vertu – handsets start at several thousand pounds each and go up to six figures. It's not that the phone features were that outstanding – although the personal concierge service was none too shabby… Despite the credit crunch, Vertu is still going strong.
4. Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman (2005)
While not the first phone to have an MP3 player onboard, Sony Ericsson shifted music playing on mobiles to prime-time by reworking the iconic Walkman brand into a music-centric handset package.
Equipped with a decent quality tune player, earphones and memory card, the W800i Walkman concept helped establish mobile phones as an everyday music player alternative.
5. Nokia 7650 (2002)
Remember when phones didn't have cameras built in? The Nokia 7650 was the decade's snap'n'send ground-breaker, with a VGA shooter tooled into the back of Nokia's debut Symbian Series 60 smartphone.
Nokia's high-end trend-setter may not have been a best-seller, but its instant-snapping legacy has redefined how we now use our phones (and embarrass our mates…).
6. Motorola RAZR V3 (2004)
Jaws clunked open and phone geeks visibly dribbled when Motorola first unveiled its RAZR – an ultra slim object of clamshell desire. It was a handset that pulsed 'must-have' from its gorgeous flat metallic keypad to its unfeasibly thin flip lid.
And then Motorola rode the design for all it was worth, pushing it from high-end aspirational boy-toy to mass-market standard-issue best-seller, with over 110m variants of the RAZR sold worldwide.
7. Nokia N95(2007)
Reflecting the technological savvy and smartphone know-how of the world's number one phone maker, the N95 was a powerhouse of a multimedia device. Packing all the latest leading edge gadgetry and features – from top-grade camera and music player to GPS – it epitomised the assured pre-eminence of Nokia in the high-end arena. After all, who else was there to duke it out with…?
8. HTC Dream (a.k.a T-Mobile G1, first Android phone) (2008)
Out with the old, in with the new… As the decade comes to a close, the Android smartphone platform looks set to become the new game in town as far as smartphone makers are concerned.
The HTC Dream was the first (slightly ungainly) shape of things to come, but with more refined models like the HTC Hero arriving and momentum among other manufacturers growing, the Android OS could be the hot mobile ticket for the new decade.
9. Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry (2002)
From Wall Street two-way paging niche to worldwide messaging phenomenon, the RIM BlackBerry epitomised the always-connected mantra of the noughties, from boardroom to bedroom.
Devilishly addictive, the Qwerty keyboard-packing, push email-delivering BlackBerry phone not only boosted productivity, it also gave us a reason to keep checking our mobiles 24/7.
10. Apple iPhone (2007)
And there's one more thing… First released in June 2007, overnight Apple's iPhone single-handedly changed the game for mobile makers, putting sheer intuitive usability and a great user experience top of the agenda.
Sure, the first version lacked some phone feature standards, but the iPhone subsequently set the pace for rivals, making touchscreens essential gadgetry, reinventing the way smartphones are expected to work (ie: easily) and raised the bar for phone apps.
According to a report from NPD, sales of cellphones have shifted in a manner which should shock and stun even a casual observer. Apparently for the first time in years, Motorola's ubiquitous RAZR has been overtaken in consumer sales... by the iPhone 3G. This is a watershed moment for handset sales in the US, marking not only a shift away from the dominant market leader, but a turn towards more complex, full-featured devices. The news comes hot on the heels of NPD's previous findings, which still placed the RAZR in the top spot -- though with ever-decreasing numbers. In that same report, the iPhone found itself in second place, but it appears that flagging interest in the inescapable dumbphone coupled with the recent iPhone PR blitz have put Apple's moneymaker into the top position. The news is also buoyed by recent reports that Apple has overtaken RIM as the number two smartphone vendor, and a J.D. Power study which found affection for the device waxing in the extreme. Overall, however, handset sales fell 15 percent year-over-year, and LG managed to snag the top brand position, with two models in the top five. Still, if there already wasn't a clear indication of the market moving towards both smartphones and touchscreen devices, this should give everyone a clearer picture of both the public's wants, and the power of Cupertino's ad-men.
.
All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
"As we continue to expand Motorola's portfolio of Android-powered devices, we remain committed to delivering more of what people want from their 
.
Posts
